The University of Southern Mississippi wanted a "professional photo" for this ward, so I got out the tripod and made this awkward composition at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. At least there's a cool plant in the photo!

In the fall of 2014, I found a new fossil plant locality near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. This Platanus fossil was one of the first complete leaf fossils that I excavated from the site. The site is turning out to be one of the richest plant fossil sites for this time period in Eastern North America. More details here about this ongoing project here: http://botanyconference.org/engine/search/index.php?func=detail&aid=191

I needed to confirm that a fossil cuticle was, in fact, Platanus, so I prepared some modern Platanus cuticle for comparison. The upper cuticle is on the left (with all the stomata) and lower cuticle is on the right.
http://cuticledb.eesi.psu.edu/cuticle/1583